Friendly neighborhood official theme

In recent years, LEGO has released two lines of licensed comic book sets. From 2002 to 2004 they released a series of Spider-Man sets based on the first two movies starring Tobey Maguire. Then from 2006 to 2008 they released a number of sets based on Batman, with inspirations that seemed to come from comic book, TV and movie versions of the Caped Crusader. The first set that I got from these licensed themes was 1376, Spider-Man Action Studio



It was a little frustrating that I had to pay $24 essentially for just the Spider-Man and Peter Parker minifigs. The building and car were sort of uninspired, in my opinion. They included the movie director fig and a camera, which sort of ruined the suspension of disbelief. Rather than act as if this set were really taking you into the Marvel universe, it made clear that you were on a movie set. On the plus side, the Spidey fig was a really cool addition to my fig population.

You can see the set inventory on Peeron, the instructions on LEGO.com or buy a copy on Bricklink.